What Anacyclosis Tells About Any Form of Government?
Any form of government ends up by being inefficient. When such inefficiency happens; there are only 2 options: either you set up reforms to make it functional again; or you get a revolution to a new form of government. No one can escape this law of anacyclosis.
Many are now opposing “democracy” to “dictatorship” or “autocracy” as forms of government, assuming that “democracy” is the best. However they ignore the fact that even a democratic system can become dysfunctional, despotic, autocratic, usurpation, dictatorial and tyrannical.
A tyrannical and despotic majority is as problematic as a minority one. An ochlocracy as well as an oligarchy or plutocracy are equally devastating as forms of government.
No matter the form of the system of government; what really matters is the efficiency in delivering the public services to citizens based on the principles of equality of rights and responsibilities. A form of government that doesn’t respect the equality of unalienable rights of its citizens; that doesn’t prevent dysfunctions and abuses of power; and finally that doesn’t make abusers of power accountable is toxic no matter it is a democracy or not. It ends up in a revolution of change of the form of the government if there are no reforms to fix its abuses and dysfunctions.
Beyond the form of any government; what really matters is its substance within the functioning of its institutions in the delivery of the public service to all citizens on the basis of principles of equality of rights and responsibilities. The Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was right in saying: «People don’t pine for democracy. They want homes, medicine, jobs, schools… with a few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to developing countries.»
By the way, the concept of “dictatorship” was invented by the ancient Roman Republic to ensure the survival of its institutions in times of existential risks against its society. If we assume that the Roman Republic was a form of democratic governance; we can state that dictatorship is an invention of a democracy. Many of bloody dictatorships have been the outcome of democratic elections. That is the case of the Nazi regime in Germany. This is why it is important to raise awareness of the risks that even a democracy can degenerate into a despotic and tyrannical regime when it is no longer effective. The raising of populism is the best indicator of dysfunctional democracy that is no longer efficient in assuring the governance of a nation.
When a democracy is under an inspiring leadership of statesmanship focusing on the general interests of all citizens; it is efficient in governing a nation. When democracy is under timocratic and Machiavellian leadership; it becomes an ochlocracy deceiving citizens’ expectations of a just and effective government that provides the public service to them on a basis of equal access to such service for protecting their inalienable rights. Such perception of degeneracy of democracy is the moment that makes the irreversible revolution of the end of democracy and the rising of a new form of government.
Socrates, Plato as well as Aristotle value Justice as the essential core and ultimate aim of the state. Socrates argues that all degenerated states become a timocracy that cannot guarantee Justice to its citizens. When timocrats seize power and have influence on a government; they turn its state into a criminal entity that is abused for their personal interests at the expense of the general interest, the public service and people unalienable rights. Timarchy or timocracy turns a legitimate monarchy into tyranny; an aristocracy into oligarchy or plutocracy; and a democracy into mob rule or ochlocracy.
Thucydides well explains how the wisdom of great statesmanship from Pericles made democracy in Athens prosperous while the timocratic patterns of demagoguery from Cleon sealed the decline and collapsing of the same democracy.
Catiline embodies the timocratic plutocracy that let to the decay of the Ancient Rome Republic as well explained by Sallust. It took the great statesmanship of Cicero to prevent the Catiline’s timocratic patterns from turning Rome into blood and ashes…
The Roman Empire knew great statesmanship from some Emperors like Trajan and Augustus. However there were some timocratic crazy ones too such as Caligula and Nero. For most of Roman Emperors’ biographers; Caligula and Nero were the essence of tyranny.
No matter the form of the government; timocrats behave through the same patterns. Here is how Socrates describes typical timocratic rulers in the Book VIII of the Plato’s Republic: « These rulers will lack wisdom; they will become ambitious and desirous of money and property; they will prefer the comforts of private lives to the welfare of the state. Their level of intellect will decline; they will value honor and ambition over wisdom. For them, reason will no longer prevail; no matter if they be courageous, they will possess only the intellectual attributes of auxiliaries. Such rulers will be unable to secure justice for the state and its citizenry. The timocratic man will value physical exploits, and he will be courageous and ambitious. When young, he might not care for money, but as he ages, he will become avaricious, and he will be unable to maintain his spiritual balance. He will become unreasonable and no longer in control of himself. »
The essential raison d’être of a a state and its government is to provide public services to citizens while ensuring the protection of their unalienable rights. The economic system essential function is to ensure an efficient management of material resources for the wellbeing of the human society.
Creating wealth and enriching individuals throughout businesses are part of the very legitimate entrepreneurship spirit and economic activities as long as such wealth creation and enrichment do not involve criminal activities; neither infringe people unalienable rights. Being supported by the government to create wealth for improving the wellbeing of people is equally very normal and legitimate.
Money and wealth in the economy are ways and means of improving the living standards in the human society. But for timocrats; money and wealth are the existential aim in controlling power and the state. Timocratic reckless patterns turn a state into a criminal entity, which runs a government by organized mob and/or organized money for enriching a bunch of few timocratic idiots at the expense of the public services, the unalienable rights and the wellbeing of people. When a nation is under influence and control of timocrats; such nation is cursed. Because timocrats don’t see and use money and wealth as part of ways and means for improving living standards in the human society; they value money and wealth as the ultimate existential aim in controlling the power of the state; the timocratic man values money and wealth as the core existential aim of their life above everything.
Thus, to achieve such aim; timocratic rulers will turn a legitimate monarchy into tyranny; an aristocracy to oligarchy or plutocracy; and a democracy into mob rule or ochlocracy. Franklin D. Roosevelt used to say that a government by organized money is as dangerous as a government by organized mob. A timocracy is either a degenerate government organized by money (oligarchy or plutocracy) or a degenerate government organized by mob (ochlocracy or anarchy).
No matter the form of a government; under timocrats’ influence and rule; the best and efficient form of the government that could be given the circumstances and the context of a nation becomes a criminal entity of timocracy threatening the unalienable rights of people, which are founded on the principles of Justice.
Beware of timocrats! They are at the heart of every decline and collapse of states, empires and the human civilization through history. Usually it takes just 2 to 3 successive generations of timocrats to get the irreversible decline and collapsing…
A nation should value the creation of wealth and its fair distribution to improve the living conditions of people in the human society. However such wealth creation shouldn’t become the existential obsession at the expense of people unalienable rights, which are based on the Principle of Justice…
A timocrat is so obsessed with money that they reduce their own existence and the control of state and power to such aim at the expense of Justice, which is the foundational principle of the state that should be the guarantee of the public service and the unalienable rights of all citizens.
The concept of Justice from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle clearly shows their influence from the MAAT concept in their education as pundits… It refers to the conception of the essential aim and the core function of the state from MAAT in Kemet, which is the same in the Ancient Greece, and even in the Ancient China.
Never take for granted the idea that any form of government is a given guarantee of virtue from Mother Nature that prevents any abuse. My point is not to make a moral judgment on any form of the government. It is to make understand that each form of the government has the same risks of being tyrannical, despotic, usurpation and inefficient. This is the reason why an effective state should set up efficient mechanisms of checks and balances in its institutional architecture and system of government to prevent such risks while ensuring continuous reforms to improve them and to maintain their effective functioning.
The only 2 multi millennia civilizations, the Kemet and Ancient China ones, were not founded on the Machiavellian paradigm of power! They were rooted on MAAT and TIANXIA, which are the antithesis of Machiavellian power.
The practice of Machiavellian power is very efficient for a timocratic leadership; it can never build a lasting societal legacy in the long time perspective.
Timocratic leadership tends to make itself indispensable and irreplaceable even when its achieved results are totally mediocre and require change. Because a Machiavellian power does not include the notion of peaceful exit when it is time to move on and leave gracefully power…
Any form of the government that is under timocratic leadership and Machiavellian power cannot be efficient in providing the public service to its citizens and ensuring the protection of their unalienable rights.
Unless new leadership of wise stastesmanship designs and implements effective reforms to make such government functional and effective; you get a revolution to another form of government. This is what anacyclosis is about…
Leaders who ignore the laws of anacyclosis and who don’t act accordingly are the curse of their nations. And when you mix bigotry, prejudice with timocracy; you get the perfect medicine for mass destruction not only of a state and the economy; but also of the human civilization itself!
In a world more and more driven by bigotry and prejudice; it is very difficult to an independent mind with balance and common sense to be part of such world… Yet you need people with a sense of moderation and with independent mind for preventing the spread of timocratic patterns.
For many, “civilization” is defined by the color of skin and the boundaries of geography! Yet when you look at what is intrinsically the features of the mankind civilization; you come out to the conclusion from the factual evidence finding that there is only one mankind civilization with many cultures that are the outcomes of the diversity of adaptation of such civilization to each ecologic, geographic and historic context.
A mind driven by bigotry and prejudice won’t understand the fact that the foundation of the Ancient Greek philosophy is the same than that of Kemet, and even of Ancient China and other cultures. They won’t be capable of understanding what makes the universality of the mankind civilization.
Aristotle surely well understood how bigotry and prejudice were fatal not only to the mankind civilization and society but also to the individual wellbeing too…
Moderation and openness of mind are essential not only to the mankind civilization but also to the individual welfare. You cannot be happy when you are driven by bigotry and prejudice!
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
it is not a random fact that HAPPINESS is among the Unalienable Rights! Because an individual or a society driven by bigotry and prejudice cannot be happy to ensure the basics of human Unalienable Rights, especially Happiness itself, which is fundamental to moderation and to the openness of mind…
No matter how sophisticated can be the “technology revolution” within the human society; no matter how productive can be the economy within the human society; if such “progress of technology and the economy” cannot make people happy and ensure their basics unalienable rights; if such progress is driving people to more bigotry and prejudice; such society is doomed to self destruction!
Ceteris paribus, the 3rd Reich of the Nazis’ regime in Germany was technologically and economically an advanced societal experiment. Why it collapsed? The answer is the mix of timocracy, bigotry and prejudice in politics, policy, governance and the economy. Everybody knows what was the outcome of such mixture.
